Category: Building Communities

Cherie and Fred Half, lay leaders of the World Union’s North American Advisory Board, and members of Congregation Beth Am, Los Altos Hills, California, reported on a very successful fundraising event at the end of February. Congregation Beth Am has for about 20 years been underwriting our twin congregation in Poltava, Ukraine. Our committee has […]

In late January – early February, the Third Pedagogical Conference of Reform Educators brought together 30 educators from Reform congregations in Belarus, Russia and Ukraine to Gomel, Belarus for three days of learning and sharing best practices in early childhood education and Jewish education.

The World Union thanks all the producers, researchers and speakers, including the European Union for Progressive Judaism (EUPJ), who presented the resources posted below for use by our global movement for further discussions and learning about ways to commemorate the Holocaust, addressing Holocaust denial, the state of Antisemitism in Europe, and more.

The WUPJ Conference in Odessa was an excellent platform for participants to study and discuss the ideology and mission of our Movement. Representatives of the communities of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus, along with youth leaders and activists from Netzer participated in lively discussions about the future of the movement, about the priorities that we want to set for ourselves over the next two years and expressed opinions on how to build a link between different generations in communities.

It is with profound sadness that the World Union for Progressive Judaism reaches out to the Jewish community of Pittsburgh to send its condolences. We stand with you. We share your pain and shock. Please find resources from across our regions and way you can stand in solidarity against anti-Semitism.

On October Monday October 15th, the World Union, and its partners in the Institute for Modern Jewish Studies – Russian State University, Abraham Geiger Kolleg, and Potsdam University – came together to dedicate and open the Frances Aaron Hess Memorial Library at the Institute.

MJLF Rabbi Delphine Horvilleur was chosen by the international foundation Global Hope Coalition as one of five 2018 “Heroes Against Extremism and Intolerance”. The award was made by Ronald Lauder, President of the World Jewish Congress, on 28 September, in the presence of heads of state and government present in New York for the United Nations General Assembly. Delphine Horvilleur was the first rabbi to receive this global award. Serge and Beate Klarsfeld were honoured in this way when these awards were first granted in 2016.

The afternoon before Rosh Hashanah, I was eating lunch at a Balinese vegan food restaurant with a Frenchman. He was telling me that he had put up a mezuzah on the door of his Balinese hotel room, when three lovely young Indonesian women, sisters from Jakarta, turn from their table and say, “I just couldn’t help but overhearing. Shanah Tova!”

This year I volunteered to serve a small and unusual kehillah (community) in Bali, Indonesia.

This year Sukkot was celebrated by WUPJ Communities across the Asian continent this year with much joy and in a uniquely Asian style. At the United Jewish Congregation in Hong Kong, their Sukkah frame survived the lashings of Typhoon Mangkhut which swept through the city before Yom Kippur. Luckily there was no s’kach covering on […]